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Often times, delegation is confused with just delegating tasks, but there is so much more to it. On a higher level, delegation is essentially delegating decisions. In this video I’ll be teaching you how to delegate effectively utilizing the ORR method. The foundation to delegation is great hiring AND great training. Once you have those two elements taken care of, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to delegate effectively. I’ll show you how to train your team to be able to make decisions based on what you would do.

How to Delegate

Now if you’re anything like me, a 99/100 D on the DISC profile (which means I am a control freak), delegation does not come naturally. In fact, it doesn’t come naturally to a lot of leaders, because a lot of leaders are get it done, fix it myself type of people.

Look, I’ve heard it all. In fact, I’ve said it all. It does not come naturally to me, and it’s a process that I’ve really had to learn over the years. Especially now as our team has been growing and growing, I’ve had to learn how to delegate to people.

Here’s the truth and this is a fact: the foundation to delegation is great hiring and great training. If you screw up on who you hire, of course you can’t delegate because you’ve got a bunch of morons working for you and a bunch of idiots running around who are going to screw it up. You’ve gotta hire great people and train them effectively.

The ORR Process

This is a process that we use this internally. I’ve taught this to my team, this is what we use, and this is the exact process that’s allowed me to delegate effectively. I call this my decision training process, because the root of delegation is not about necessarily delegating tasks, though that’s part of it. That’s the basic level of delegation. The highest form of delegation, then, is delegating decisions.

The ability for others to make decisions is the highest form of delegation, and that’s where you have leaders who are truly leading in that area. That doesn’t mean that they run a department or run a division, or have people reporting to them, it means that they’re able to make decisions without you in every single decision.

Now, I know some of you, that makes you break into a cold sweat. Your hands are getting a little clammy, there might be beads of sweat dripping down, but here’s why you want to delegate decisions: if you have to be the decision maker for every little thing that happens in your organization, you become what’s known as a bottle-neck or a lid on your organization. That’s why you need to teach people how to make decisions the way you would make decisions.

Now, it’s kind of the old joke, you know, what would Jesus do? You could have a ‘what would Travis do’? What would Joe do? What would ______ do? You want them to be able to think the way that you think, and make decisions the way that you make decisions. But you’ve got to be able to train them to do that, so this is the process for training people to make decisions.

There are 3 steps to the ORR Process: options, recommendation, reasons.

When an employee encounters a problem, it usually it sounds like this, “Hey, Travis, we need to make a decision on this, this, and this, what should we do?” The problem with that is everybody just dumps the problem and decision on your desk, and need this decision made. What I realized is I don’t have time to make all these decisions. I travel too much, I’ve got too many other things going on, and some of these things shouldn’t be my decision in the first place. So, what I decided to do is create the ORR process. So, here’s what this looks like.

Options

The first step is for the employee to provide three best options to move forward with, and they must be able to explain why they are the three best options. So now, instead, they’ll be able to come to you and say, “Hey, Travis, so we have to make a decision on a venue that we’re gonna choose for an event. I’ve researched the venues, and here’s the three that I think are the best options available.”

At minimum they need to come back with three. Sometimes they come back with five and sometimes they may come back with more than that, based off of what they’re seeing or if they’re just unsure, and that’s okay. More options is great, less options not great. Make sure they come back with the three options that they think are the best, and they are prepared to tell you why they think they’re the best.

Recommendations

It’s important that you’re a participant in this, but not making the decision here. Let them run with this.

Now you can ask them which one they recommend you choose and why they chose that recommendation. Allow them to discuss their recommendation and why they recommend the option that they’ve chosen. You can also allow them to discuss why they don’t recommend the other options.

Reasons

Now, here’s where the magic comes in. Now you’re going to discuss it. Let them know if you support their recommendation or if you would’ve gone a different way. What you’re doing is you’re training them how to do it, but here’s the key: if they make the wrong decision don’t come beating down on them. Instead what you want to do is say, “you know what? I can understand why you would’ve made that choice, but there’s some data and some information that you may not have had access to, and so let me show it to you from different perspective” or “here’s why I would’ve gone with option two instead of option one. I see what you were seeing there, but now do you see from this perspective, or why that would be of benefit to us as an organization?”

Now you’re having those discussions and you’re talking through it. Help them understand how you arrived at a decision. Now the next time they come back to you with a situation, what do they do? They use the ORR Process and say, “Hey, here’s three options, here’s my recommendation, and here’s my reasoning.”

With enough practice over and over again, they’ll stop coming to you, because you’ve trained them on how to make decisions like you would. Now you don’t have to be involved in every decision that goes on in the company, because you’ve trained people to make decisions the way that you would make decisions.

Now, here’s the thing. Are they always gonna get it right? No, they’re not always gonna get it right. And that’s part of delegation. Sometimes they will make a decision that they thought was in the best interest of the company, but we come to find out it wasn’t, or it wasn’t maybe the best decision. That’s okay. As long as they learn from it and as long as we talk about it, that’s the most important part.

That’s all about delegation, that’s about leadership, that’s about education and training. And that’s the process that we’re going to go through. This is the process that’s going empower you to train people to lead. Empower them to be able to make decisions, to not just take tasks, but to be able to run with it and make decisions.

I look forward to serving you in future videos. In the meantime, don’t settle for anything less than you’re capable of. If you believe in yourself just half as much as I believe in you, you’ve got an amazing business and an amazing life ahead of you, and it is an honor to serve you in this capacity. See you soon, guys.